Section 31 — Repeal — RTI Wiki Citizen Guide 2026

The Freedom of Information Act, 2002 is hereby repealed.

In one line: the one-sentence funeral of India's first transparency statute — repealed by the very Act that delivered what it had promised. </WRAP>

India's first attempt at a statutory right to information: passed by Parliament in 2002, assented in January 2003 (Act 5 of 2003) — and never given a commencement notification. Its design showed the weakness the 2005 Act fixed: multiple exempting grounds, weak appeal machinery, no penalty provisions, and obligations on the union government alone.

• Repeals the 2002 Act outright — one line, no conditions.
• No savings clause: unlike most repealing sections (compare §6 of the General Clauses Act, 1897, which saves past actions when a statute is repealed), the RTI Act's §31 carries no proviso. Nothing needed saving: a statute never in force generates no rights, proceedings or appointments to preserve.
• Consequential completeness: with the 2005 Act in force, every freedom-of-information question from 12 October 2005 onward answers under the RTI Act alone.

• The movement's arc: the 2002 Act was the concession; the 2005 Act was the result of the campaign (MKSS's Jan Sunwais, the NCPRI's drafting pressure) for a law with teeth — commissions, penalties, deadlines.
• Textbook contrast: citing the 2002 Act's weaker design against the 2005 Act's is a standard way to show what the RTI right actually added — an appeal ladder that bites and exemptions that must be justified.
• No transitional law: there is no “FOI-era” record or proceeding in Indian administrative practice — every right, remedy and obligation discussed on this site flows from the 2005 Act.

For drafting RTIs or appeals engaging this section, use the First RTI template or the First Appeal template. See How to fill an RTI application for structural help.

The section saves nothing, and in any case the 2002 Act never came into force — there are no FOI-era orders or rights to preserve.

No — some states had earlier local statutes; §31 repeals only the central 2002 Act. State-level predecessor laws were displaced by their own state machinery under the 2005 Act.

Because there was nothing to save: no commencement, no actions, no appointments. Drafters save what existed.

As repealed law in statute archives — of historical interest only; cite the RTI Act, 2005 for anything live.

• Back to the full RTI Act
• Section 6 — Request for information
• Section 7 — Disposal
• Section 8 — Exemptions
• Section 19 — Appeals
• All explanations
• Landmark RTI decisions
• The RTI Playbook book

1. Right to Information Act, 2005, Section 31.
2. RTI (Amendment) Act, 2019 (where applicable).
3. DPDP Rules, 2025, notified 14 November 2025 (where applicable).
4. Department of Personnel and Training, Guide on the RTI Act, 2005.

Last reviewed on: 27 August 2026. Verbatim text added; the earlier page's savings-clause claim corrected — the enacted section has none; the 2002 Act's history and why nothing needed saving explained.